I don't want to get you into bad habits, but it would well be worth placing a pound or two in Saturday's Grand National on the new white hope of all northerners, According to Pete.

It won't make him win; although let's hope he does, to bring even more smiles to the face of his owner Peter Nelson, whose Yorkshire stable totals just two mounts in a paddock alongside the family newsagents' business in Helperby, on the flatlands round Thirsk.

But it will further ramp up the rah-rah-for-the-north bandwagon which was rolling along in excellent style on this morning's Today programme on Radio 4. Click the link, check out the running order for Alison Mitchell's sports news at 7.25am and then click on 'latest programme in full' and pull the marker along the bar. Nelson, who's 71, takes time out from sorting the village's paper rounds to talk modestly about the dreamy prospect of teaching southern racehorse owners a thing or two.

This isn't by any means a far-fetched notion, in the manner of Guardian Fiction Prizewinner J. L. Carr's marvellous How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers won the FA Cup, which is also set in Yorkshire close to the A1 Great North Road, where Carr grew up. Racing experts including the Guardian's own Will Hayler are taking According to Pete seriously. The National will be his 50th race and he has won 11 and is noted for clearing fences with echt Yorkshire fearlessness. His mother Magic Bloom won nine out of 53 and is Nelson's other horse. Now 26, she munches the grass beside the newsagency and the family's MoT-specialist garage.

If According to Pete comes back to North Yorkshire with £975,000 from Liverpool, that will be good for the county's economy in other ways. Norton, Malton and Middleham need a boost to revive the grand old days of the county's racing which are commemorated in the names of so many of the county's pubs.

Visit the Alice Hawthorn at Nun Monkton one of these nice Spring weekends, and check out the 19th century Queen of the Turf who which won the Derby twice and produced a family of other great runners. Or if you're in Nidderdale and wonder why the pub at Summerbridge is called the Flying Dutchman and has a picture of a clipper ship in full sail, learn about the wonderful 1840s thoroughbred of that name, from Kirkleatham.

And betting? Well, you shouldn't really, but it can lift morale, so do it for the north. I remember in how in 1983 the Conservatives in Colne Valley made their man the General Election favourite artificially by placing bets, and how the Liberals counter-attacked, against the Methodist instincts of most of them who had never been into a bookie's, and reversed the position in favour of the sitting MP, my Dad.

Everyone benefited (except the Conservatives). The Liberals held the seat, the one-off Methodist punters gave their winnings to charity, and some didn't even collect them either on principle or because they weren't sure how to. So the bookies did OK as well.